The Magsaysay Award-winning rural affairs editor of The Hindu, Palagummi Sainath, continues his one-man crusade against the growing disconnect between mass media and mass reality.

At the launch of the website of Janashakthi, a Kannada weekly, in Bangalore on Thursday, Sainath said:

# Media is disconnected with 70 per cent of the population and is not talking to them. During elections, it is these 70 per cent who make news. During such time, all the opinion polls will be washed away due to huge under current of these voters.

# Except one TV channel and one newspaper in the whole country, not one media organisation thought Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar admission in Parliament that about 1.6 lakh farmers committed suicide between 1997 and 2007, was news.

# Mass media even failed to report the outcome of a house-to-house survey of farmers, conducted by the Maharashtra government, which revealed that 2 million farming families were in a highly distressed state

# Indian media is giving importance only for the “elite” section of society. 512 media representatives cover a week-long fashion show held every year in Bombay, while six representatives of the national media do not wish to stay in villages to study and report the causes of farmers’ suicide in the Vidharabha region.

# Budget announcement of waiving of farm loans of over Rs. 50,000 crore has been described as “unprecedented” in the mass media, when such concessions were being given to the corporate sector every year.

# While the media spoke about the farmers and there were panel discussion on television channels, there were no farmers or somebody who knew about farming on the panel.

6 comments

Let’s see where shall we start. Sainath has yet to write anything about the disastrous state of agriculutre in Kerala – where farmers growing cash crops risk, being thrashed by commie thugs (OK that should e either commie or thug, they are synonymous), or having their crops burnt, or even worse. Guess who is affected, not the Achayan fatcats who grow plantation crops in S. Kerala and don’t pay a rupee in taxes – but the poor Hindu famers in C. Kerala, who have no clout at all. We had food riots in West Bengal and the Pol Potist atrocities this year. Number of words written by Sainath and published by his master – zero. The hige Rs. 60,000 crore swindle isn’t even a giveaway – it is simply underwriting banks so that they may write off bad loans. And as I said earlier Sainath is clueless about the difference between tax concessions or debt rescheduling for productive enterprises and non-productive marginal farmers. The media doesn’t reach 70% of the poulation? What do you expect Sainath, when 60 years of Independence have not achieved 100% literacy? It’s your government and your socialism that has landed us in this sorry mess. And in any case what is the point writing about people who vote the self same set of crooks every five years? In TN a corrupt family distributes TV sets and returns to power. In Karnataka a corrupt family lets the capital city go to seed and claims to be humble farmers. And Sainath writes the same trash over and over again.

Blame the remote and the finger. Those who really want to be informed, have their own means to get information. Even if you put it in the mainstream newspapers or channel, the page can be turned or you can just skip the channel.

Even L.K Advani had high praise for Sainath. But he gets away with Marxist idea of governments grabbing everything and then condescendingly saying “you can keep some”.. like Kaangeya mentioned, let him talk about the state of agriculture in Kerala.

media
is actually based on TRP.
Then how can you expect it cover 70% of population?
The news reaches every nook and corner of the country if any communal conflicts takes place. That too against hindu’s it reaches every where
Name it commus name it congs and all local political parties and every one will actively take part to say the incident is happened b’cos of hindu aggressives (BJP/RSS). With out going deep in to the issue.
TRP increased they why to bother. Even communal tension also. Not only in one place in India in every nook and corner of the country,
It is wrong to say it do not cover 70% of require population. it is reaching
If one says India is shining other says it is shaming. It is reaching.
Actually which has to reach that will not give any channel or news paper the TRP. Then why it should be published/Broadcasted?
Hats off to the intellectual people and TV channels and News papers.
Nodi swamy navu irrode hee ge.